Forest Ride

By Allan Edmonds

It was a first-rate end to a first-rate week. Some 38 riders gathered for the scheduled club ride at 9 am at Bryan Park. Well, actually, only about 17 or so were planning to do the scheduled route. The others were split between doing the longer M and M ride of about 60 miles and an alternative of about the same length that went west from Martinsville.

We wound our way through the rebuilding work on the road through Cascades Park. Cars can't get through. But bikes could make without even dismounting. Apparently the tree that came down during a big storm this spring severely damaged the retaining wall and underneath support for the road. There is no end in sight for the work.

All three groups gathered at the entrance to the Morgan-Monroe State Forest at about mile 14, before splitting up. I was able to get a couple of pictures that I had to stitch together in order to see everyone. I count 36 heads in the picture, plus a couple that didn't get into it. Can you spot the seam? Click on the photos to see larger versions!

Pretty soon Joe Anderson led out the group doing the Forest ride and we left the others to their own devices. We headed down to the Lookout Tower, where we took a group picture that was able to capture everyone in a single frame.

From there we descended Bean Blossom Hill down to Anderson, then on to Old 37, and back the way we came. Three of our group split off to climb Boltinghouse Hill. (These are OWLS? Don't they know what W means?)

By and by we got back to the park close to noon. Somewhat unusual for us, we had a good-sized group finishing together. (The slowest of us averaged about 14.5mph.) So we took one more picture to document the 10 plus photographer who came in together.

Just a few minutes later two of the three who did Boltinghouse Hill arrived as well.

The weather was great. The record-sized group fantastic. Let's keep it up.